My Lacie D2 external harddrive of 250 gigs recently died. I suspect it has something to do with the internal part that deals with the power supply. This because when I plug the power in, nothing happens, no bue light, the drive doesn't spin or anything. So...

Is it possible to open up the case and just insert the physical drive into my G4 windtunnel tower? Any help would be great since the drive contains a great deal of my portfolio...

My Lacie D2 external harddrive of 250 gigs recently died. I suspect it has something to do with the internal part that deals with the power supply. This because when I plug the power in, nothing happens, no bue light, the drive doesn't spin or anything. So...

Is it possible to open up the case and just insert the physical drive into my G4 windtunnel tower? Any help would be great since the drive contains a great deal of my portfolio...

thanks

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Yeah, it shouldn't be a problem to transplant the drive.

You could also get a new power supply--LaCie sells them, or if its less than a year old they'll probably send you one under warranty.

This thread is a couple of years old now, and the information may not be of any use to anyone anymore, but in case it is:

I just replaced the hard drive of a few-years-old LaCie D2 Triple Interface (no longer made, since replaced by the D2 Quadra) external drive. The old one was a 160 GB Maxtor ATA drive. I replaced it today with a Western Digital drive of twice the capacity that I bought at bestbuy. The only confusing part to me was the placement of the "jumper shunt." After a few seconds of research, I concluded that no shunt meant something like "Master," which I guess is what I wanted. At any rate, the drive's working fine, now, fans and all. It's recognized by my MBP, and all is well.

My 160GB Lacie is dying slowly (runs OK, but then HDD clicks as though it has powered down. You then have to cycle the power to get it back)

Just managed to copy everything over onto another HDD, so I thought I'd open it up and replace the HDD.

The one inside is a Maxtor, but I wanted to replace it with a larger drive. Your post has confirmed this is possible.

One comment - I switched it off last night, but when I came to open it this morning, the HDD was still very hot. The HDD must still spin when the drive is 'off'. There is a space for a fan inside the Lacie case but none is fitted.

This thread is a couple of years old now, and the information may not be of any use to anyone anymore, but in case it is:

I just replaced the hard drive of a few-years-old LaCie D2 Triple Interface (no longer made, since replaced by the D2 Quadra) external drive. The old one was a 160 GB Maxtor ATA drive. I replaced it today with a Western Digital drive of twice the capacity that I bought at bestbuy. The only confusing part to me was the placement of the "jumper shunt." After a few seconds of research, I concluded that no shunt meant something like "Master," which I guess is what I wanted. At any rate, the drive's working fine, now, fans and all. It's recognized by my MBP, and all is well.

Good luck to anyone else attempting this.

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Same hard-disk here (160GB d2 triple interface). What's the max size supported? Could I change a 160GB with a 500GB ?
Thank you

Is there any reason that I shouldn't be able to pop a 1TB SATA in this bad boy?

I'm mainly concerned about heat dissipation, I'm not sure how much hotter a 1TB would get than the 160GB currently living in there.

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Make sure you open the drive enclosure first to make sure yours is using SATA drives before you make your decison since the older ones were almost exclusively IDE/PATA drives which are not available in any drives larger than 750Gb.

Same hard-disk here (160GB d2 triple interface). What's the max size supported? Could I change a 160GB with a 500GB ?
Thank you

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I have the same d2 that you have and I'm wondering if you ever figured out the max drive you could put in the enclosure. Mine is currently a 160GB and I thought it would be a cheap upgrade just to put a larger disk in it. The firewire interface I used with my Mac is more than adequate for my heavy video/music usage...

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I'd throw this out there just in case. I've had easily a dozen LaCie drives over the years -- beginning with a 160 megabyte model more than a decade ago -- and like other users, I've had my share of power supply and drive failures.

But I've never cracked the enclosure of a d2, and I need to now. I suspect the drive inside my failed d2 Quadra is fine and the data intact, but the unit is failing to power up. And this time, it's not the external power supply -- I swapped the cord with working power supplies from other drives and each time I use them with the failed drive, I get a clicking sound in the external supply. (But when those supplies are reconnected to other drives, those drives have no problems and the bricks don't make the hissing and clicking sound).

I'd like to crack open the enclosure for my d2 quadra so that I can get out the disk and see if data can be recovered once I pop it in another enclosure or drop it in a sata dock.

I've looked high and low for info on cracking the case, but I haven't found any instructions. In the hopes of preserving the data and disk inside, I'm actually eager to follow instructions this time around. Any one have any ideas and advice on successfully opening a LaCie d2 Quadra case and getting out the disk?

Just unscrew the 4 screws at the corners on the back of the case. They are surprisingly long, but they will release the front and back plates. The drive cage is held in by another couple of screws on the bottom of the case. Remove those and the drive cage will slide out.

Just this last weekend I removed the CD-RW IDE drive from my LaCie aluminum external FW400 device and replaced it with a DVD-RW DL IDE drive I took out of a PC. After I sealed the LaCie back up I plugged that bag boy right into my Mac Pro (FW800 to 400 cable ), and I was off to the races. There were no driver issues, no problems of any sort. The LaCie drive simply *is* a DVD-RW DL now, not a CD-RW. My MacPro just sees "LaCie FW400" in About this Mac.

So it seems to me anyway, that you can replace just about any IDE device in one of these externals with another of the same size. My next fun project is taking the CD-RW IDE drive out of an external Iomega I have and replacing it with an IDE tape drive that's the same size. Hope I have time to do that tonight.

Any IDE 3.5" HD - usually maxtor is safe bet as the drive inside the lacie is a maxtor.

Just did the opposite from you...

I have just had to take my harddrive out of my lacie D2 because the ports on the back stopped working

So i took the drive out and put it in a new enclosure...

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I also have a d2 (Extreme, not Quadra) which is on the fritz. Thought it was power-related, and got replacement power brick on advice of LaCie tech rep. Got it in, still kept getting intermittent power with some whine from the brick.. which leads me to believe that it's the brick.. but when I move the 4-pin connector on the drive, it will fritz... even thought it's not loose from the board inside (I looked). So anyway, it's a Samsung drive inside.. what kind of enclosure can I use? Sorry, I'm tech-savvy (lifelong musician, and visual performance artist), but just haven't dealt with drives too much.. (Hence owning the d2).

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